Swedish Military Capture Pirates in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean

Now, this is weird. Swedish soldiers are patrolling international water between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. The Swedes are part of a European Union army (!) and they’re looking for Somalian pirates. The EU has an agreement with Kenya that pirates should be tried in Kenya. Today it was a Greek ship involved in the capture and so the question was raised whether to send them to Greek courts. A Swedish trial is not on the map though, even if all other countries on the map seem to want a piece of the pirates.

The pirates are mostly recruited to mob-like organizations from amongst poor fishermen who can’t earn enough money on fishing to provide forthemselves or their families. And the reason they’re out of work is because they have very low-tech fishing equitment and vessels, while the waters have been opened up to huge international corporations who quickly suck up all the fish out of the water and send off to the rich Western. Hence, it is far beyond irony that the pirates kidnap rich Westerners to extract money from.